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CROSSBILL. 
the furze is very thick, high, and difficult to get in. This 
bird breeds every year in the furze-bushes on Munsted, 
High-down, Headley, Elstead and many other heaths in 
our neighbourhood. And although it is so common in the 
winter, and so active and noisy when disturbed by dogs 
and guns, still, in the breeding-season, it is a shy skulking 
bird, hiding itself in thick places, much in the manner of 
the grasshopper lark, and seldom allowing one to hear the 
sound of its voice. And by the way, the furze-wren is not 
the only bird that breaks out into a kind of song when 
frightened or disturbed. I have often obtained a ditty 
from the sedge-bird by throwing a stone into a bush where 
I knew he was lurking : and even from the nightingale, 
by following him immediately after his arrival ; his song, 
however, would consist only of two or three bars, preceded 
and followed by abundance of angry ' cliurrs.' 
The Crossbill is by no means uncommon here in the 
winter. I have seen them of every hue, from bright yel- 
low-green to bright red, and of all the intermediate shades 
between each of these and dull brown. Strange as it may 
seem, the light red ones seem to be young birds, the yel- 
low-green ones old hens, and the brown ones old cocks ; 
at least this has been the case in those which I have had 
an opportunity of examining.* The cry of the crossbill is 
very peculiar; it is sharper than that of the greenfinch, and 
louder than that of the linnet. I may however observe, 
* All the observations made on the changes of plumage in these singular 
birds have been without a satisfactory result. Mr. Henrj Doubleday, whom I 
consider the best observer of our British birds, says, '* I can say but little about 
the colour of plumage of crossbills as depending on age : they all turn yellow in 
confinement, and I have shot at the same time both red and yellow birds, ap- 
parently old, and others of mixed red and yellow : after the first moult the young 
males seem to be a reddish buff." — E. N. 
